Renewable energy systems in off-grid mountain huts: photovoltaic, storage and backup

Mountain huts operating in off-grid mountain environments face specific energy challenges due to their remote location, extreme weather conditions, and limited accessibility for fuel supply. This thesis presents a critical analysis of energy systems for isolated mountain huts, focusing on the integration of photovoltaic generation, battery storage, and diesel backup generators. An overview of the main technologies is provided, including their advantages, limitations, and specific criticalities when applied to high-altitude contexts. Two real case studies, Rifugio Lancia in the Italian Dolomites and Refugio de Lizara in the Spanish Pyrenees, are used to ground the analysis in practice. The findings suggest that a well-designed hybrid system, combining renewable generation with reliable backup and adequate storage, consistently outperforms a diesel-only configuration, and that improving how an existing system is managed, even without new hardware, can meaningfully reduce fuel consumption and associated emissions. The role of energy storage emerges as a central element, and proper system sizing is identified as a key factor in achieving effective and economically viable decarbonization.